42 POINTS PROFIT AND ANOTHER 8-1 WINNER: Following hard on the heels of Trumpington Street (WON 8-1 Wednesday), Daqman yesterday landed another winner at the same SP, Sajwah (WON 8-1), on a hot day’s tipping that netted 42 points profit.

DAQMAN TAKES THE HIGH ROAD: His winners on the day included Highland Castle (WON 3-1) and Single Lady (WON 7-4). Highland Castle was 6.2 on Betdaq when nominated by Daqman. Trumpington Street was 12.5.

Punters are dependent on quality riders. It took me ages to get over Lester Piggott’s retirement and for weeks the racing pages looked bare when Willie Carson hung up his boots.

I missed Kieren Fallon when he had his ‘holiday.’ Now I’m missing Hayley Turner. What I’ll do when Tony McCoy has gone doesn’t bear thinking about.

We know instinctively as their careers progress that certain jockeys are ‘making a difference’ and we want them on our side. Murray Dwyer, the Australian professional punter I mentioned yesterday, used English ratings and a computer to assess each rider’s ability.

Did the rider improve on the rating of the horse beneath him? I can tell you that Piggott could get another 5lb-6lb out of his mount which, in a sprint, is sometimes the difference (about two lengths) between last and first.

I’ve mentioned my memorable moments with Phil Bull and Alex Bird. With Dwyer, it was when he priced up a race and found Horse X with winning potential at 5-1 to his reckoning. The bookies were going 10-1.

At the very moment I was discussing the race with him on the phone, I got a call on another line to tell me: Piggott rides Horse X.

Can you imagine? Ching-ching went the £ signs in my brain, as I naively muttered down the phone: What are you going to do? Dwyer replied: I’m going to back it and back it and back and..’

Bird, Bull and Dwyer were Winners: serious students, clever investors. Those with money to burn are just gamblers. The definition is: you invest when you have the wit to consider a favourable outcome; you gamble when you bet without knowing – or caring – what chance you have of winning or losing.

I can reveal that Dwyer and his computer team switched their operation almost entirely to Betdaq betting, and that’s where a favourable outcome is available to every punter who will put in the time to consider that outcome.

You can’t pick winners every day – no one can – but you can pick Betdaq-value horses like Trumpington Street (8-1 from 12.5) and Highland Castle (3-1 from 6.2) with practice and purpose.

There are class-3 and class-4 races at Haydock today and the rider you wouldn’t want to be without who’s involved in most of them is Silvestre De Sousa.

Kieren Fallon has had publicity – including from me – about taking outside rides and traveling up and down the country for winners but just look at De Sousa at Haydock today: he’s aboard horses for Mark Buckley, Steve Gollings, Paul Green, David O’Meara, Lisa Williamson and Robert Wylie.

Somewhere among those is some intent and purpose that we need to winkle out with our punting pin and hope to be on oysters and champagne by the end of the day.

De Sousa takes over on Ferdy (2.40) who hasn’t really been in a race yet (soft ground and missed break at Chester) but there’s no reason to believe he can suddenly win this, seemingly unfancied at 38.0, as I write.

De Sousa is two out of two getting Ryan Style (3.10) into the frame and will be keen to compensate the owners after returning to the scales with the incorrect weight when a close third at Epsom, and he prefers this previous Haydock winner to Invincible Force.

Lee Topliss keeps the ride after taking over from De Sousa on Invincible Force last time it ran and won at Carlisle. De Sousa also deserts Tro Nesa.

Rio Cobolo and Klynch are other Haydock winners in the field but Klynch remains high in the handicap after a hat-trick in May.

Marvellous Value at 14.0 could be well named as a winner in a higher grade. But you need a price about La Zamora, useful last season but so far blighting this one with slow starts and unruly behaviour.

The one they’ve gone for is ‘could be anything’ Iron Range, unexposed after one run, one win, and an easy one at that. But, with the ground drying out, I’ll have my pound on Ryan Style at 12.5

De Sousa’s mount, Roker Park (4.10), is back down to a winning rating and is one of the few in the race that have so far been capable of winning in a higher grade: Amitola tries a new trip but poor runs this season suggest he hasn’t trained on and, despite being tipped in the trade paper, has drifted like a dog on a raft to 20.0.

That leaves Free For All, who ran well in a class-3 on the soft at Ascot and will appreciate the sounder surface today, and Prime Exhibit, within a length and a half of winning a big-field class-2 at the Ebor meeting but a Selkirk who won’t appreciate the drying ground.

So it is that Paul Hanagan prefers Bawaardi, a big price at 12.5 offers this morning if he can bounce back to his Spring form, now dropped a grade from class-2.

Baptist (5.10) has burnt a hole in my pocket but his Newmarket run suggests that today’s step up in trip might help.

Barren Brook has his ground again and should hold Dhaular Dhar on Doncaster form but the in-and-out performer Eltheeb (19.5) is due a win and is handicapped to beat both of them after running fourth in that Town Moor race.

On her Way is up a level and Take It To The Max has seemed more at home over a mile. But Troopingthecolour (11.0) is down in class after decent effort sunder Olivier Peslier and Jamie Spencer at big meetings at Ascot and York. His rider today? Silvestre De Sousa.

DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 1.7pts win RYAN STYLE (3.10 Haydock)
BET 1.7pts win BAWAARDI (4.10 Haydock)
BET 2.2pts win BAPTIST, 2pts win TROOPINGTHECOLOUR and 1pt win and place ELTHEEB (5.10 Haydock)
BET 3.7pts win BRABAZON and 3.2pts win PERCEPTION (8.50 Kempton)
BET 6.4pts win (nap) SPENSLEY (9.20 Kempton)